Information Technology Services  

Report to the Board of Trustees August 4, 2010 

    

2 | I T S U P D A T E

 Information Technology Services 

August 4, 2010 (Prepared: July 14, 2010) 

 This update provides a brief look into the activities initiated or completed in the Information Technology Services Division.    

LEADERSHIP  Establish leadership in the areas in which we have chosen to excel. 

 

• Shared Service: PeopleSoft Implementation Project at LCCC 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The University of Akron continues to support Lorain’s ERP implementation.  

Following on the successful launch this past Spring of LCCC’s PeopleSoft applications, University of Akron personnel continue to meet regularly with LCCC to implement business processes that occur later in the business cycle that are yet‐to‐be completed.  

Financial projects underway include fiscal year‐end rollover, budgeting, fiscal year‐end close, and financial reporting.   

Human Capital Management (HR) projects to be completed include leave processing, automating faculty load payroll calculation, absence management, COBRA administration, and electronic PAFs.   

We expect to complete these projects this summer. 

The next step with this project is to combine the IT organizations from UA and Lorain.  We expect this consolidation to reduce the total IT headcount required to support both institutions.  Our goal is to have the IT organizations combined by the end of this fiscal year.  We also plan to begin working with Provost Sherman; Akron’s new CFO; VP of Student Affairs, Charlie Fey and the senior leaders at Lorain to plan and execute phase II of shared services which includes combining select business units.  Phase II is expected to take 12‐24 months due to the complexity of this phase.          

• Curriculum Approval Process Review: Timeline revised 

 

The Faculty Senate’s Curriculum Proposal Process Improvement Project is being delayed to give the faculty more time for testing and training. 

While the original plan called for training during this summer with an early Fall rollout, UA and our project consultants, Team Informatics, revised the timeline when it became necessary to add extra time to further engage faculty in design and review of the revised curriculum approval process. The revised timeline calls for training to begin in mid‐November with a rollout of the new process to the campus by January 2011.  

The old curriculum proposal system will be used to support program and course changes for the Fall semester.   

3 | I T S U P D A T E

  

ENGAGEMENT  Design ITS services to function for the public good – for our students, the institution and the communities that we serve. 

• The University’s New Web Pages 

 

 

During the summer, the web team has continued to work on converting University departments and colleges to the new web design.   

New Web Sites Launched in June/July 2010 • Board of Trustees 

• Wayne.uakron.edu 

• College of Engineering  

• Health Sciences and Human Services  

• Creative and Professional Arts  

• Honors 

• Nursing 

Web Sites Nearing completion • Education 

• Institutional Research 

• ITS 

• Engineering 

• Arts and Sciences 

• University College 

• Office of General Counsel 

• Student affairs is launching sites as they become ready 

4 | I T S U P D A T E

• Continuing and Professional Education  As part of the University’s ongoing effort to expand our capacity to deliver continuing and professional education, we have invited a company, Destiny Solutions, with a best‐in‐class non‐credit delivery system to campus July 26 to conduct a fit/gap analysis.  This analysis will determine if the Destiny software provides the non‐credit functionality required by Summit College, Wayne College, Medina County University Center and Lorain County Community College.  

• Campus‐wide Scheduling: Series25 

 

A committee comprised of end‐users from throughout the University defined a need to implement a common scheduling system.  

The committee selected the vendor CollegeNet to provide an appropriate solution for the goal of implementing an enterprise scheduling solution integrating all existing room/resource data.  

The purchased solution, Series25, will create efficiencies in scheduling and optimize the utilization of resources and facilities. The companion reporting tool, X25, will provide the university unprecedented access to data concerning our use of resources and space. This reporting will allow decision makers at all levels of administration to understand how space and resources are utilized and to make informed decisions regarding their efficient use.  Our ultimate goal is to minimize the capital investments required to support our continuing growth by maximizing the utilization of our physical assets.   

The first round of training was completed at the end of June and an implementation team was assembled. Data standardization decisions are being made and data source identification, collection, and entry will proceed from these decisions.  

• Directions for Online Learning  Instructional Services is developing a framework to support the expansion of online degree and certificate programs at The University of Akron. 

Information Technology Services is preparing informational materials for Provost Sherman on the past and current state of e‐learning at The University of Akron. Based on support from the Provost, a strategic plan will be refined and implemented. 

In collaboration with the Office of the Provost, resources will be provided to assist in determining market demand for specific UA programs.  

• Contributor Relations  In order to support the ever increasing demand for alumni and development services, a group has begun investigating new technologies to support Contributor Relations. A new customer relationship management based application is being sought to more effectively deal with alumni and friends of the University. Such a package would allow improved collaboration between colleges and the Development Office and provide development officers with state‐of‐the‐art, off site interaction with the system.  

5 | I T S U P D A T E

• Laptops for IT Career Camp  IT has partnered with the College of Business (CBA) to mentor high school students and encourage them to pursue technology degrees. June 7‐11, CBA hosted the IT Career Camp.  

The week‐long day camp was organized by CBA’s Center for Information Technologies and eBusiness (CITe), in conjunction with Project Grad Akron. 

As part of CBA’s Career Camp, the University’s Information Technology Services Division provided 30 decommissioned IBM R40 laptops for use during the Career Camp.  As a surprise at the end of the camp, the 30 students from Buchtel High School were then given the laptops to keep.   

These PCs, which were decommissioned five years ago, were slated to be donated when an opportunity was presented.   

INNOVATION  Optimize our students’ opportunities for success by providing innovative services and instructional experiences. 

• Campus‐wide Innovation 

 

Information Technology (IT) has selected Spigit as the technology tool it feels will enable us to tap into the “collective genius” at the University.   Spigit is a social networking tool that can be deployed across UA’s internal and external community.  Faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the University will have the opportunity to engage in networking. In collaboration with others who share the same interests and who are dedicated to finding creative solutions to like problems, idea development will flourish. 

Timeline 

• July 2010: Application Design/Development • August 2010: Soft Opening 

o Populate UA site with ideas already gathered from strategic planning efforts 

o Engage key campus participants to ‘model’ good behavior and demonstrate how to use the tool 

• August 15, 2010: Launch Marketing Campaign o Build interest and promote engagement in time for the 

Fall semester opening • September 2010: Engagement begins 

o Publish links to UA site • Ongoing Fall 2010: Idea Management/Review/Implementation 

o Interact with ‘unit’ representatives as needed o Respond to inquiries as needed o Monitor idea submissions o Monitor system use o Produce Managerial Reports periodically o Report Progress on Idea Implementation 

• December 2010: Review System Design o Create targeted categories o Make other changes as needed 

• January 2010: Re‐launch • Spring 2011: Idea Management/Review/Implementation Process 

Continues 

6 | I T S U P D A T E

• Electronic Medical Records  Representatives of the College of Nursing and the Speech‐Language Pathology & Audiology program identified the need for a system to automate patient scheduling, patient accounts/billing, and electronic medical records for their clinics.   

The two areas partnered with IT to research software applications that will meet the requirements identified for this project.  Other medically oriented programs at the University were included in discussions.   

In July, a request for proposal (RFP) was issued to vendors who provide Electronic Medical Records (EMR).   

The timeline was to implement the EMR in August with full deployment by early September. 

At The University of Akron, the three areas that will use an EMR are Health Services (Division of Student Affairs), Nursing Center for Community Health (College of Nursing), and Speech, Lang/Path and Audiology (Summit College).  Cost, benefit and proposed implementation details are forthcoming. 

INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE  Value differences with the intention of promoting learning, critical thinking and personal enrichment of students. 

• IT Support for A&S  As a result of turnover and our ongoing desire to centralize IT support across campus, IT is now supporting the College of Arts & Sciences Chemistry Department.  When IT assumes responsibility for support of college departments, we always conduct a detailed review of the technology in place.  Below are a few examples of the improvements that resulted. 

• IT upgraded and reimaged 20 old Gateway computers with the new GX280 computers. This provided newer technology and  more standardization of the technology within the lab. 

• IT’s Wide Area Network group installed new wiring for the first floor of the Chemistry department. The new networking replaces older wiring and standardizes the networking within the department by providing one connection per computer, thus improving performance and stabilization.  As computers are changed to the new networking, they will be changed to the UAnet network domain, which will allow IT to provide improved support.  

We are proud of the success we’ve achieved centralizing and sharing IT support at The University of Akron, even though there is more work to be done.  We have achieved over 85% centralization which provides significant economies of scales and cost savings.  Kent is under 75% centralized and schools like Case Western are under 50%.    

7 | I T S U P D A T E

• CENTSS 

 

 

The University of Akron joined 25 Ohio colleges and universities in the Center for Transforming Student Services (CENTSS) project. This assessment of the technological capability of our web‐based student services is coordinated by the Ohio Learning Network and supported by Chancellor Eric Fingerhut.   

The CENTSS audit relies on institutional teams to conduct reviews of web‐based student services. The results can be used to identify where a technology solution could be implemented to improve the ability of student services staff to provide service to students.   In the first phase of the project, 17 student services in the Academic Services and Personal Services areas were audited.  More than 100 faculty and staff have completed the audit survey for one or more service areas.  

The CENTSS audit team leaders from The University of Akron attended a meeting in Columbus where the collected results from all participating institutions were discussed.  

UA’s results on this first half of the CENTSS audit place our student services at a peer level with the rest of the participating institutions in Ohio.  This audit confirms we are well positioned, from a student services perspective to scale our online course and program offerings. 

• Telecommunications: Soccer Broadcast 

 

 

Media outlets will have state‐of‐the‐art technology when they broadcast University of Akron soccer from the new field. 

Information Technology’s Telecommunications is provisioning the construction of an underground duct bank and the installation of multimedia broadcast and communications facilities at the newly renovated Soccer Field.   

This initiative will provide state‐of‐the‐art connectivity for all media and has been designed to accommodate the growing needs of the adjacent sports venues, including softball and baseball.

• Telecommunications: Memorial Hall   Although the primary tunnel will be maintained after the demolition of Memorial Hall, the communications conduits to several buildings will be destroyed.   

In preparation, all communications cables have been replaced to: 

1. Rhodes Arena 2. Student Recreation and Wellness 3. InfoCision Stadium 4. Spicer Residence Hall 5. East Campus Parking Deck 

Work was completed prior to Capital Planning deadlines. 

8 | I T S U P D A T E

• Telecommunications: Miscellaneous  National Polymer (NPIC): The communications infrastructure has been extended to provide data, voice and cable TV to the new building.  Wired and wireless network equipment is installed and active.   

Wireless Hardware Upgrade: The following buildings have been upgraded: Bierce Library, Science & Tech Library, Law Library, Student Union, Exchange Residence Hall, and Honors.  

Distance Learning Network: A separate network has been installed for the sole use of the Distance Learning to provide greater bandwidth and flexibility to the high schools being served. DL staff has completed all testing on the independent network with excellent results.  All DL hardware was migrated to the new circuit in July. 

Satellite Dish Move: All satellite dishes and services located behind the Lincoln Building have been either removed or relocated.  Newer, smaller (3.5 meter) dishes have been installed.  The former dish farm area has been reclaimed resulting in additional parking for students and staff. 

• New Data Center 

 

ITS staff has met with IT personnel from AGMC, Summa, and Kent State concerning options for a new data center.   

The University of Akron’s interest is the result of our need for disaster recovery and the increase in hosting computing services for organization outside of the University.  These functions require redundancy, uptime, higher security, etc.  

Four options are being considered 

• Build a new • Renovate the existing  • Cohabit – share data center with others • Do nothing  

Representatives from UA, AGMS, and Summa will visit Involta’s Cedar Rapids, Iowa data center in July to further evaluate shared data center options.  A formal proposal will be presented to senior management and the Board later this summer. 

ASSESSMENT  Metrics that measure ITS utilization and improvement against targets. 

•  ITS Metrics  The most current ITS metrics available at the time of this report are attached. If a line item does not have a target, the metric is intended to indicate the amount of work or activity being delivered. Lines with targets indicate levels of performance we strive to achieve.  

   

9 | I T S U P D A T E

ITS DEPARTMENT SCORECARD – MAY 2010

DAILY SERVICES PROVIDED MAY

TARGET

MAY

APRIL MARCH Support Center (Help Desk) Number Support Center calls *15 N/A 5438 4,573 5,283Average Speed of Answer 3m9s 3m38S 1m52s1st Call Resolution Rate *16 >64.8% 87% 70% 69%Number of tickets opened by HD N/A 3982 3,800 4,033Total tickets opened N/A 4808 4,882 5,173Calls closed within four hours N/A 1043 4,274 4,574Calls closed first day N/A 1758 4,530 4,652Calls over one week old N/A 105 4121 25Support Center abandoned calls <2% 27%(1448) 26% (1169) 25(1391)# of Users serviced at walk-in centers N/A 920 1,420 1,585# of Laptops checked out at walk-in centers *17 N/A 718 2,860 2,509Central Servers (Data Center) Data Center uptime percent (% of posted hours) 100% 100% 100% 100%Mainframe uptime percent (% of posted hours) 99.9% 100% 100% 100%Unix/Linux server uptime percent (% of posted hours) 99.9% 100% 100% 100%Windows/Apple Server uptime percent (% of posted hours) 99.9%

100% 100% 100%

Web Server www.uakron.edu uptime percent 99.9% 99.88% 100% 100%Total number of virtual/physical servers on platform N/A 369 / 199 392 / 207 387 / 208 Total number of data center outages 0 0 0 0Messaging & Network Total email accounts (UAnet IDs) N/A 198716 197068 194470Total active email accounts (UAnet IDs) N/A 47590 46126 43538Total forwarded email accounts (forwarded off campus) N/A 96 91 122Total emails processed (originates internally + originates externally and accepted) N/A

10539728 15617206 12101395

Total emails filtered (originates externally and either tagged spam/virus or rejected) N/A

493239 1156018 592123

Percent of emails filtered (percent of total mail originating externally either tagged or rejected) N/A

6.81% 11.00% 7.80%

Email uptime percent (weighted by percent users affected) 99.50% 100% 100% 100%Total active network nodes N/A 11,369 13,395 13,707Data network uptime 100% 100% 100% 100%Wireless network uptime 100% 100% 99% 100%Total number of reported network outages 0 0 2 0Web Total Web page views N/A 2,363,764 2,884,139 2,933,937Total unique Web visitors N/A 231,662 294,243 295,516Total ZipLine (portal) logins N/A 662,743 763,115 698,184Total ZipLine (portal) unique logins N/A 35,151 33,221 32,643Printing Total print jobs processed 1,381 152 150 130Training Total attending and completing class 100 72 119 159Contact hours for classes 45 42.75 58 48.75One-on-one training sessions N/A N/A N/A N/AApplication support – one-to-one assistance (tickets) N/A 9 21 47Number of visits to online tutorials (NOTE: Office 2003 training and WebCT training suspended in July and August in prep of Office 2007 and new LMS) 1,000

688 Atomic Learning

tutorials and 21 workshops

660 Atomic Learning Tutorials

339 Atomic Learning tutorials

10 | I T S U P D A T E

ITS DEPARTMENT SCORECARD – MAY 2010

DAILY SERVICES PROVIDED MAY

TARGET

MAY

APRIL

MARCH

Critical Application Data Administrative logins PeopleSoft N/A 115,676 107,654 95,627Administrative users PeopleSoft N/A 919 931 918Logins to PeopleSoft self-service via ZipLine (students, faculty, staff) N/A

364,277 225,956 172,672

Number of PeopleSoft users via ZipLine (students, faculty, staff) N/A

31,750 27,430 25,413

NT Process Scheduler statistics *10 N/A App Engine 1,628 1,509 1,339 Crystal 5,821 3,558 5,288 COBOL 1,674 1,635 1,724 PSJob 3,341 3,286 3,010 RoboFTP Script 163 156 171 SQR 11,351 10,100 9,233 XML Publisher N/A 14 12 46Admissions applications: Grad N/A 298 317 494Admissions applications: Law N/A 99 135 353Admissions applications: Undergrad N/A 1,530 1,685 2,035Self-service enrollment requests (by students) N/A 49,767 96,177 45,413Self-service enrollment requests unique users (students) N/A 8,558 12,308 8,162Administrative enrollment/maintenance requests (by staff) N/A 441,313 1,167,312 1,223,318Administrative enrollment/maintenance requests unique students N/A

19,544 48,889 62,074

Transcripts produced N/A 25,525 17,453 14,704Enrollment verifications produced N/A 2,679 2,036 2,411Grades posted N/A 100,603 461 255Student financials transactions, unique students N/A 13,622 15,004 7,605Student financials transactions *12 N/A 127,460 126,143 22,549 Charge (7,285 students) N/A 82,580 107,944 8,419 Financial Aid (3,451 students) N/A 9,809 999 1,772 Payment (8,159 students) N/A 30,689 15,852 11,119 Refund (2,578 students) N/A 3,253 860 1,003 Waiver (861 students) N/A 1,129 488 236Financial aid ISIRs loaded *11 N/A 10,470 10,075 11,975Financial aid ISIRs loaded, unique students N/A 7,137 7,763 10,218Financial aid award transactions N/A 28,559 19,991 16,494Financial aid award transactions unique students N/A 8,128 4,809 7,595Financial aid disbursements N/A 6,732 705 1,190Financial aid disbursements unique students N/A 3,439 501 749University-Enterprise Manager Computers *1 885Total Windows desktops clients N/A 3,902 3970 3,830Total Windows laptops clients N/A 2,331 2618 2,578Total Apple clients N/A 458 455 455Total Managed Clients N/A 6,691 7,043 6,863Lab Computers (count & utilization) 1,904Windows Laptops (ITS managed) N/A 652 622 622 Students Checkout N/A 375 375 375 Mobile Teaching N/A 207 177 177 Special Use N/A 70 70 70 Total Logins N/A 4,764 21,549 16,578 Total Unique Users N/A 1,511 5,217 4,221

11 | I T S U P D A T E

ITS DEPARTMENT SCORECARD – MAY 2010

DAILY SERVICES PROVIDED MAY

TARGET

MAY

APRIL

MARCH

Windows Desktops (ITS managed) N/A 677 706 706 ITS General Purpose N/A 104 125 125 Departmental N/A 573 581 581 Total Logins N/A 7,579 31,964 30,223 Total Unique Users N/A 2,872 5,856 6,081Kiosk Stations N/A 124 124 124 Main Campus N/A 116 116 116 MCUC N/A 8 8 8 Total Kiosk Logins N/A 10,726 28,206 25,276 Total Kiosk Unique Users N/A 4,743 8,636 8,028Apple Labs N/A 181 181 181 Departmental Laptops N/A 27 27 27 Departmental Desktops N/A 154 154 154 Total Logins N/A 2716 10,585 8,912 Total Unique Users N/A 1048 1,899 1,761

Distance Learning/Audio Visual/Academic Technology

Number of DL class sessions *13 N/A 218 1824 1556Number of Springboard active course sections N/A 501 2,976 2,972Number of Springboard unique active users N/A 9,081 23,255 23,685Number of unique instructors using clickers N/A 16 50 50Number of course sections using clickers N/A 15 82 82Number of students (all sections) using clickers N/A 394 4,151 4,151Number of Audio Visual equipment deliveries N/A 485 2702 2165

Department & Administration Total ITS headcount at end of month N/A 130 130 129 Full-time N/A 123 123 122 Part-time N/A 7 7 7 Consultant N/A 0 0 0 Approved openings N/A 5 7 8 On leave N/A 0 0 0 Student N/A 84 115 114Total "Ask the VP" questions N/A N/A N/A N/ATotal department hours accrued for vacation N/A 26,103 26,776 26,557Total department reported vacation N/A 44,040 42,659 41,415Total department reported sick time N/A 24,724 24,072 23,425Footnotes *1. ITS managed clients logged in to the University network in the last 30 days. *10. Process Scheduler Stats are cleared weekly. Stats for April were not retained. We are keeping stats for May and future months. *11. FAFSA applications for financial aid. *12. Total is higher than unique users because individual students may have had more than one transaction. *13. Includes UA on-campus rooms and Medina County classrooms. This includes both distance and local use. *14. Only semester totals are available for Computer Based Assessment & Evaluation. *15. There are 10 days with no phone reports. *16. Industry standard for the first call resolution rate is 65.8%, for Higher Education 58.8%, industry target is 70.9%. Cost savings to the institution for first call resolution is about $150. per call. Outsourced Support Desks FCR is 66.3%. ** HDI

best practices survey 2007. *17. Laptop Check-out centers included in report Student Union